Juvenal: The Effects Of Empire On Roman Citizens

The poet Juvenal suggests the effects of empire on every day Roman citizens had turned them to carelessness. Without a vote, the people didn’t have a say, and as a consequence, they entered into a state of redundancy. They resolved to live with a bribe of food and entertainment, which is what the poet Juvenal refers to as “bread and circuses”. They forget about Rome as a whole and injustice and instead move along with gratifying their own delights. I think Juvenal was saying that the effects of the empire had truly corrupted the people as a whole and changed their mentality. They used to be centered on what was good, but these indulgences had blinded the citizens. Although this bribery might have been a great component of the attitude change
Naturally, as human beings, we all have someone we look up to or someone we are inspired by. Someone we admire for their courage, intellect, beauty, and so on. Thus if the emperor was well popular with the vulgar masses, they would stand by him as long as he kept them content. For example, Octavian was rewarded with the title of Augustus, which had originally been reserved for the gods. Subsequently, he was even declared a deity by the Senate. If the people truly believed he was a “god,” wouldn’t they have followed in his footsteps and repeated his actions? So if the emperor at the time was worried about things such as food and entertainment, wouldn’t the people do the
Texts state that by the A.D. 100s, the paterfamilias (the dominant male head of the household) no longer had control of his children. Also, he eventually lost authority over his wife and she was then allowed to go and do as she pleased, without a guardian. Many civilizations believed family was central to society and if family values and moral principles disappeared, their fate as a whole would be similar. I think this is precisely what happened to the Romans; they lost sight of family principles and as a result destroyed a strong foundation on which they rested. Instead of focusing on moral values, they turned to pleasuring